The Canadian Portrait Gallery - Volume 3 (of 4)Dent, John Charles
History
The Canadian Portrait Gallery - Volume 3 (of 4)
Dent, John Charles
Canada -- Biography
marsh and river, where again and again, in the bitterness of baffled
striving, the untiring pilgrim pushed onwards towards the goal which he
was never to attain. America owes him an enduring memory; for in this
masculine figure she sees the pioneer who guided her to the possession
of her richest heritage."
THE RIGHT REV. JAMES W. WILLIAMS, D.D.,
_BISHOP OF QUEBEC._
Bishop Williams is a son of the late Rev. David Williams, who was for
many years Rector of Banghurst, Hampshire, England. He was born at the
town of Overton, Hampshire, in 1825, and his childhood was chiefly
passed in that neighbourhood. He was intended for holy orders from his
earliest years. In his boyhood he attended for some time at an
educational establishment at Crewkerne, a town in the south-eastern part
of Somersetshire, whence he passed to Pembroke College, Oxford. His
collegiate course was not specially noteworthy, but was marked by
considerable diligence. He graduated as B.A. in 1851, taking honours in
classics. He in due course obtained his degrees of M.A. and D.D. He was
admitted to Deacon's Orders by the Lord Bishop of Oxford, and (in 1856)
to Priest's Orders by the Lord Bishop of Bath and Wells. He for a short
time held curacies respectively in Buckinghamshire and Somersetshire.
His classical attainments were of more than average excellence, and
seeing no prospect of immediate advancement in England, he in 1857 came
over to Canada to assist in organizing a school in connection with
Bishop's College, Lennoxville. Within a short time after his arrival he
was appointed Rector of the College Grammar School, and soon afterwards
succeeded to the Classical Professorship of the College, a position
which he retained until his elevation to the Episcopacy.
Upon the death of the late Right Rev. George Jehoshaphat Mountain,
Bishop of Quebec, in 1863, the subject of this sketch was appointed his
successor by the Synod; and on the 11th of June of that year he was
consecrated at Quebec by the Most Reverend the Metropolitan, assisted by
the Bishops of Toronto, Ontario, Huron and Vermont. His first Episcopal
act was to advance three Deacons to the Priesthood.
The See over which his jurisdiction extends was constituted in the year
1793, and formerly comprised the whole of Upper and Lower Canada. Its
extent has since been from time to time curtailed, and it is now
confined to that part of the Province of Quebec extending from Three
Rivers to the Straits of Belleisle and New Brunswick, on the shores of
the St. Lawrence and all east of a line drawn from Three Rivers to Lake
Memphremagog.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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